Steam Department Update March / April 2016

I find myself using almost exactly the same introduction as for the turntable update.  A great deal has been achieved but everything seems to be taking just that bit longer than had been hoped.

Obviously the focus in the shop has been upon #1630 and getting her ready for the new season.  Work has been progressing on two fronts at the same time.  The first is the preparation for the hydrostatic test of the boiler after all the annual inspection activities and the second is the reassembly of the valves after a thorough overhaul.

The preparation for the hydro test has been frustrating.  In the past couple of years, we have occasionally seen issues with minor leakage from one or two super heater flues where they are expanded into the firebox tube sheet.  This year we obtained some new rollers to try to get a better seal.  The results were excellent.  Since this was done we have no sign of leakage from the flues that have previously been a nuisance.  Just by way of revenge!, we have had difficulty getting a couple of wash out plugs, that are removed annually and have never previously caused problems, to seal completely dry.  Anyway, after a couple of iterations, everything now seems to be dry and we will aim to do the full test at 125% pressure under FRA inspection this weekend.

Just about everything related to the valves is now machined and ready to reassemble.  The honing of the re-bored valve chambers proved a longer and more tedious process than initially anticipated.  Many thanks to Rod Turner for his efforts on getting this done.

The first big challenge was to establish a satisfactory method for driving the hone.  The bores are large so the rotation speed needs to be slow.  An old nut driver that provided a suitably slow speed of rotation had to be refurbished to achieve this.  Then you need this to be held at a level that keeps it reasonably at the level of the center of the bore but allows it to be moved smoothly back and fore.  The assembly of suspension by heavy springs achieved this.

Rig for honing the valve cylinders

The honing stones that actually smooth the bores look like this.

Hone in place in the bore

Now the bores just need to be thoroughly cleaned and re-assembly of the valves will start this weekend.

Another job has been the build-up and re-machining of the crosshead from the fireman’s side.  The crosshead mounts between plates bolted to the guide above and below.  The puzzle was that this one was a very sloppy fit laterally while the ES one was a reasonable sliding fit.  It may well be that this part has been loose for many years as it does not appear to show wear to explain the loose fit.  Anyway, it is clearly preferable that it should be a sliding fit, so it was built up with weld and is here being machined to size.

Machining the crosshead

 The new babbit in the main crosshead shoe has been machined to fit and the shoe put back on the crosshead.  Unfortunately the locomotive has been moved slightly since it was removed, so now of the bolts cannot be fitted until the locomotive is moved back a few inches!.

Work has proceeded on lagging the Shay but this has inevitably taken a back seat to work on #1630.

In the shop, Collin has made major progress on the new big air compressor.  This has now tested well, after a couple of valves and seals were replaced.  Now we wait on completion of the wiring and belt guards to allow the system to be fully tested and made ready for State inspection.

Progress has also been made on setting up the power supply to the wheel lathe

We are still scheduling to run Memorial Day weekend.  However, this will depend upon a lot being achieved in a short time and so without much in the way of the “little tribulations” that have hindered us in the last month or two.  Every effort will be made to run Memorial Day weekend but my current advice would be to watch for updates and not to make firm plans yet based upon seeing #1630 running that weekend.